Hand Me Downs

My husband and I have an ongoing disagreement about hand me downs. When our children outgrow their undies, I do not believe they should be passed on… to a younger sibling, to Goodwill, to cousins.. to anyone. Yes, I know they are washed and clean but I just have issues with that kind of undergarment being passed on. His argument? It is what they did when they were growing up, and so that’s that. Why should it be any different with his kids?

Am I the only one who thinks that this kind of hand me down is a bit icky? Help me see the light or give me a good argument to go back and set my husband straight. And for those of you thinking, “Geez, don’t they have better things to argue about than this?”, we do. Like which direction our trash can should face, or how far up in the garage I should pull the van in and my favorite… why do I get a Netflix subscription and then let the movie sit on our TV for 2 months. Lots of important arguing going on in the Doyle household, but this issue has been gnawing at me for some time now, so I just need to bring some closure to it

I do believe that hand me downs are great, but not of the undie variety. Some of the best recipes in our repertoire are hand me downs from others. One of my favorite wedding shower themes is where people share their family recipes with the bride. What a great way to start off your marriage, with a collection of favorite recipes from those you love.

My mother-in-law recently passed on the recipe for her fruit turnovers. She makes these often for breakfast when we are home (didn’t I marry into a great family? Pie as a breakfast food… genius!). What I love best about hand me down recipes is the verbage in the recipe. I’m going to share this recipe with you, exactly how she gave it to me. If you decided to make these and need some clarification, feel free to contact me and I’ll pass on to you my interpretation.

Use pastry blender to blend flour with 1/4 cup butter (get crumbly) in a stainless steel bowl.
Add 10 tbs of ice water to make a plyable dough, use fork to keep mixing in until a dough ball forms.Add more water, a bit at a time if the dough ball doesn’t form right away.
Cover with damp, clean dish cloth. Chill about 15 minutes.
Remaining 1/2 cup of butter leave out until plyable and easy to work with.

Roll out the dough on lightly floured surface and then place the butter over the top of the dough – spread butter around surface of dough until thick
Pull up one corner of the dough and bring it over so corners meet (so butter to butter). Keep folding until butter starts to seem through. Keep doing this (roll, fold, fold, fold, roll, fold, fold, fold) until the butter is well incorporated into the dough. (Essentially, this is the way you knead the dough). It will be slimey.
Chill overnight in covered bowl (Kristen here – I’m an instant gratification girl and skipped this step with great results)

Roll out on flowered board, cut it into squares. Place fruit in center, fold over and seal your edges. Canned pie filling works best because it is soft and won’t bust through the dough. For apple, use one apple per turnover and a little bit of the gel. For other fruits, one small tablespoon of filling/fruit works well. Jam – use one heaping teaspoon full.
Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes. Once cool, feel free to use a powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, milk drizzle or glaze.

A Little Bit of Housekeeping

If you haven’t already, make sure to sign up for the Dine & Dish Adopt-A-Blogger #2 event! Space is limited, so sign up today!

The family is heading back to school and life on the home front is a bit crazy lately. Check out what the Dine & Dish kids are up to these days. Visit Dishing it up Family Style.

Are you on Twitter? I had Firefox issues the other day, Twittered about it and had a reply and solution from Firefox instantly. Awesome! Follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

Do you want to get the most recent Dine & Dish updates right in your email inbox? Click HERE.

And finally, my favorite bit of news… my 75 year old mom has started a blog! I’m so excited for her to be capturing her memories from growing up and her perspective on life in the world today. Hope you will head over and visit her at On the Inside Looking Back.

Stay Connected

Comments

Oh I am so right there with you on the hand-me-down underpants. When my children outgrow some, they go right in the trash. And when people give us some…they go right in the trash. That’s just so personal, and you never know where they’ve been! I’m the same with socks too. We don’t pass them on, and we don’t wear hand-me-downs. I don’t know what it is, but you’re absolutely right on this one.

I have mixed emotions about the underwear. I volunteered and worked at the homeless shelter in Olathe for many years. When we would get donations of gently used underwear and bras, I would take them home, throw them in the washer with clorox, then take them back to the shelter.

As with any donations, I threw the yucky stuff away. But that’s another story!

I love your mom’s blog! It is bookmarked right under yours. Thanks, Nella

My mom would take the outgrown/outworn underwear and use it for dust rags. Is that better or worse than passing them down to siblings? I mean, you’re not wearing them, but you’re wiping them over all the surfaces in the house…

Honestly I don’t know if we WOULD have done hand-me-downs… I doubt they’d have handed down my (girls’) undies to my little brother, clean or unclean!

As for underoos, I think donating gently used bras are fine, but I agree with you and think underwear is a little gross. Also, some of our local donation centers look like they get so much unusable donations that I wouldn’t want to add on to that mess.

Hello Kristen. I love your blog! I am pleased to announce that “Dine & Dish” has been reviewed and added to Blogging Women. Congratulations. Thank you for submitting it and for doing such a wonderful job. It’s my pleasure to add another quality women’s blog to the directory.

I have to agree with you on the undies issue. While it’s wonderful to hand down clothing to loved ones or others in need, I believe undies shouldn’t be passed on.

Can’t wait to try the fruit turnover recipes. Wishing you continued success!

Hand-me-down underroos! No way Jose! When my sister-in-law came to visit a few years ago and forgot to pack underwear, she asked if she could “borrow” a pair. Uh…. nope. Not a chance. I don’t care if you soak that stuff in bleach… never wearing it again. ICK!
~Cat

I am absolutely with you on the underwear thing. They’re just not that expensive to buy new and some things are absolutely worth it.

And any advice to someone who is pastry-challenged? Those turnovers look so tasty but whenever a recipe says to use a pastry blender I shy away after many attempts with zero success. Am I just not patient enough?

Personally I don’t think it is that big of a deal to hand down underwear to a sibling if it looks decent (some get really rough and I just toss). But I wouldn’t hand it to anyone else. Same with socks and even tennis shoes as they get A LOT of wear and tear.

When I was younger, our family started bringing our oldest, most tattered underwear on trips. Then after wearing them, we tossed them instead of packing back up the dirty underwear! Saves a little space going home for something you purchase! Then you don’t have to think about passing them down.

I have to say you definitely should NOT donate used undies to Goodwill or any other charity. When I did some volunteering to send clothes to Hurricane Katrina victims, we had to discard ENTIRE BAGS of donating clothing if there were unsealed (thus, presumably used)underwear in there. It will waste your whole donation if you donate used undies.http://twitter.com/acsmo

I really enjoyed the blog entry and LOL at the comments. Thank you for mentioning my blog in your recommendations. I have had many comments from readers of Dine and Dish. Congratulations on your being included in that directory. By the way, as for hand-me-downs, it depends. How’s that for straddling the fence? This blog about undies has given me another memory/idea for my blog.

Trackbacks

[…] a younger sibling, to Goodwill, to cousins.. to anyone. Yes, I know they are washed and clean but Ihttp://dineanddish.net/2008/08/hand-me-downs/Read “RE: Eliminating Netflix Profiles” at DVD General Discussion Forum… be very bad timing on my […]

Scrumptious Salads

Kristen is a busy mom of 4 young kids, loves to entertain, has a passion for photography, and believes in keeping things simple. An avid reader, a kind of runner, a horrible gardener, and the wife of an outstanding man, Kristen’s ultimate life goal is to connect and create meaningful relationships with others. Read More…